History and People of Saint-Pierre
Location: Saint-Pierre, Martinique, France
Surnames/tags: One_Place_Studies Martinique France
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Saint-Pierre, Martinique One Place Study
Saint-Pierre is a town and commune of France's Caribbean overseas department of Martinique. Before the total destruction of Saint-Pierre in 1902 by a volcanic eruption, it was the most important city of Martinique culturally and economically, being known as "the Paris of the Caribbean". While Fort-de-France was the official administrative capital, Saint-Pierre was the cultural capital of Martinique. After the disaster, Fort-de-France grew in economic importance.
- Wikidata: Item Q545210, en:Wikipedia
| Wikidata: Item Q545210, fr:Wikipedia
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Name
Geography
- Continent: Oceania
- Country: France
- Region: Martinique
- Arrondissement: Saint-Pierre
- GPS Coordinates: 14.772718,-61.2107141
- Elevation: 0–1,397 m (0–4,583 ft)
History
Saint-Pierre was founded in 1635 by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, a French trader and adventurer, as the first permanent French colony on the island of Martinique.
The Great Hurricane of 1780 produced a storm-surge of 8 metres (25 ft) which "inundated the city, destroying all houses" and killed 9,000 people.
The Indigine
The Europeans
Esclavage
Eruption of Pelée
The town was destroyed again in 1902. when the volcano Mount Pelée erupted, killing 28,000 people, the entire population of the town as well as people from neighboring villages who had taken refuge in the supposedly safe city, save two people—a prisoner by the name of Louis-Auguste Cyparis (also known by various other names), who later toured the world with the Barnum and Bailey Circus, and Léon Compère-Léandre, a man who lived at the edge of the city.[2][3][4] Legend (erroneously[citation needed]) has it that the town's doom was forecast by loud groaning noises from within the volcano, but the mayor of the town had it blocked off to prevent people from leaving during an election. This story appears to have originated with one of the island's newspapers,[which?] published by a political opponent of the governor. Actually, there was considerable eruptive activity in the two weeks prior to the fatal blast, but since the phenomenon of the pyroclastic flow (nuée ardente) was not yet understood, the danger was perceived to be from lava flows, which, it was believed,[by whom?] would be stopped by two valleys between the volcano and the city.–Text taken from Wikipedia
Population
Notables
Sources
Note: I added this page to assist in a One Place Study of Martinique du Nord, Martinique One Place Study. It includes the communes around the base of Mont Pelée, prior to the eruption of 1902. The goal of my study is to add as many individuals from these communes as I can document, and to link them into the world family tree. I would also like to present as much as I can about the history, from the time of the indigenous people to the eruption of Pelée. I want this to be a resource for genealogists studying this region. Although the civil and parrish records have been scanned online, no one, as far as I know, is creating a digital index. I hope to fill that void. I could use help on this project from native French speakers (I am not), and others interested in Martinique. –Duane Poncy
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